Hero Files::XCorps::Prologue::Heroes
by Miss Narrator Acoolie -Kiari
Summary: As I'll soon be starting my XMen future fanfiction, the XCorps, I'm going to start you off with a little taste of what's to come with my Hero Files. If I end up putting any other stuff that doesn't belong in the files I might make a Files Deux. But for no
1. Opening: The Burning

_The year is 2023. The date is February 12th. In late 2005, a crisis occured on Earth. The former Scarlet Witch, the now-disappeared miss Wanda Maximoff, said these words: _

_"No More Mutants."_

_This changed the world drastically. The mutant population was decimated, all of the evolution that had brought them to where they were turned back. Many of those retaining their powers as well as who had lost them resided in a place known as "Mutant Town." They are all over the world. Some of those who had no powers became suidcidal. Also, Professor Xavier, founder of his school for "gifted youngsters," mentor to the X-Men, and long-time mutant rights advocate as well as one of the world's most powerful mutants himself, has been erased from existence. He remains dead after becomind so in Wanda's "perfect world."_

_A few mutants have appeared here and there since then, but not many. Xavier's school in New York now houses only a very small number of students, as well as a few X-Men from the "old days." Wolverine now resides permanently with the New Avengers. Emma Frost and Scott Summers are the only ones from the past who remain at the school._

_Since January 1st, this year, '23, New Year's Day, more mutants' powers are becoming active than ever before in history, more even than since Xavier's time. This is scaring the "normal" population of Earth, still outnumbering mutants, and causing many riots..._

* * *

Scott Summers drove back from his brief dinner with Emma Frost to Salem Center, New York, and to his former school, to the now almost abandoned place once run by his former teacher, Charles Xavier.They knew as well as everyone else who watched the news or had any sort of contact with society did about the growing mutant population. But never had the two expected what had happened. There were only seven children currently at the school; but now there were at least fifteen new applicants. Every day there was more news about at least two people discovering new mutant powers in odd and sometimes horrible ways. A boy with cat ears, a girl who could make things explode, another who could hear the whole world at once and run faster than the eye can see, so many more. They had gone for a bite, leaving the older children responsible for the younger ones, and needing a break from the sudden rush. Still, that was all anyone could think of. And then a frantic call came on the cell phone. One of the oldest girls. Emma couldn't even understand what she was saying, she was so frantic, and so they drove back to the school as quickly as possible, expecting the worst. And now, here they were. And nothing they expected.

A preacher, on the news often as a well-known anti-mutant leader, stood in front of the school, screaming a "sermon" about mutants being demons and unnatural. The children, some seemingly hurt, all with tearstained faces, had luckily gotten away, all seven, and Frost and Summers ran to meet the group as the children rushed towards them, all crying so that none could make out what they were trying to say. A group of anti-mutant rioters were all around, surrounding the school on all sides, waving signs, screaming, chanting. And carrying torches. And the worst sight of all. The school itself.

Smoke and flew in the wind, flames flew up into the air, everything was orange and gold in the sunset. The school... Xavier's school... was, by this time, little more than a pile of soot and embers, blackened and charred. The horrid acrid smell and sting in their eyes that the smoke caused made the whole group's tears come so much more.

Scott barely recognised his own voice, barely knew was was happening. He simply screamed at the top of his lungs. "No! No, not this! You can take anything else, but you can't do this! You can't do this!" over and over again. Xavier's school was his home, had always been his home, and it was where he had his family. It was just like anyone else seeing the house they had lived in and called home for so long burned down. It was awful, and awful, awful sight. He could hardly stand to see his home. Destroyed...


	2. Sunny

Sunshine Banks was between a rock and a hard place. That's right. No way out.

Roxanne Dent was the prettiest girl in the school, according to most sources. She had that almost-too-perfect blonde hair, those pouty lips, those baby blue eyes, that perfect figure. She was known for it, and she was know for getting whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, because Roxanne had looks and money. This year, what she wanted just happened to be a guy, and the guy just happened to be Eric Samson. It was accepted as fact that no boy could resist Roxanne, and so she was left unchallenged.

Until Sunny came along. Being the new kid, she was then tested. All popular people were to ignore her, natural and without command. Of course, the outcasts, at least half of whom had once been new themselves who had failed such "tests," didn't always obey the rules of nature and of school. They took her in. But not before she met Roxanne...

_... "Excuse me," Sunny said almost shyly, as anyone new would, "Do you mind if I sit here?" The girl next to the only empty desk was a bit overwhelming, seeming to glow with bottled beauty. But, of course, it was just that. Bottled. Anyone could have seen it, especially Sunny, who was experienced in such things. _

_Roxanne looked up breifly and gave the new kid one of those, "I'm so much better than you that I don't need to even know you're there," glares that people with money are so very good at giving. She already new she hated this kid. Her red-brown hair was of a sort and complexity to radiant to be dye, in which case the color would have looked much flatter and duller. And those curls weren't permed. Roxanne herself had naturally mouse-brown hair, and had to overpay her stylist just right for her perfect blonde movie-star layers. _

_Sunny knew that whoever this was, she had already decided to become an enemy. Very well. War it was. She sat down anyway, looking the girl's way. "My name's Sunny, by the way," she said, trying once more for a truce._

_Roxanne simply coughed once, ignoring her and continuing to talk to the girl on the other side of her._

_She didn't think she needed to be liked by someone such as Sunny... _

But Sunny was pretty and unique. On her second day, she tried talking to people. And others, seeing her bravery and unable to tear her down with the insults that she, unlike others before her, seemed able to throw right back. Quickly she rose to the top with her odd ideas and charm, and those who became her friends began to refer to Roxanne as the "bottled princess" just as Sunny herself had. This idea began to spread across the school, a signal that war was definitely upon the two girls.

Roxanne, as she always had, decided to ignore it. But then the most horrible thing that could have happened to Sunny, did. She hadn't yet found out about Roxanne's eye for Eric. And Eric idn't seem to have the memo, either; his mind was set Sunny's direction...

_... "Hey. You're Sunny Banks, right?"_

_"Yeah. You're...?"_

_"Eric. Eric Samson. I've heard a lot about you. Nice hair, by the way."_

_"Thanks. So what's up, Eric?"_

_"I was wondering if you like movies."_

_"That depends."_

_"On what?"_

_"What movie and whether I'm going by myself or with someone."_

_"How about going to see the new Scary Movie? With me. Saturday?"_

_"Then I guess I do like movies..." _

...Roxanne's wrath was upon her now. There was no hiding. The hall had been empty; she needed a bathroom break. Normally she wouldn't go in a public restroom, but... feminine emergency. And there she was, Roxanne, chasing Sunny down with a pair of scissors and screaming, before she even knew what was going on.

Then she was running, and not even knowing where she was going. Until, of course, Roxanne had a now semi-new girl who still didn't know the school's setup well trapped with her back to the wall.

"I'll teach you, you little whore!" she screeched, her normally beautiful face contorted in rage. "We'll see how nice your hair is after I'm finished with you!" Few have an idea of how horrible a pretty girl can look when she is angry. Mad is probably the better turn, a crazy psychotic sort of anger. Red blotches were all over her face, her hair sweat-soaked and hanging limp.

"Just leave me the hell alone!" Sunny cried, feeling somewhat like a caged animal. "What do you want from me? What had I ever done?"

"'Leave me alone'," Roxanne mocked, "Not a chance." she was going to finish the war she started.

And she had a weapong, where Sunny had none. When she saw those scissor coming at her, she could do nothing. Her first instinct was to shield her face using her arms. The next was to scream, and then, to pray.

Suddenly the last thing she expected happened. A sound like a thunderclap or large fireworks reached her ears. She was in such a state of shock and fright that she could feel nothing, only slightly regiestering that something wet was running down her arms.

It seemed like forever she was sitting there. Arms over her face, wet on her forearm, crouched in the corner. She was still. Sunny didn't want to look up. She didn't know what she would see there. Just like everyone, she had a terrible fear of the unknown. It must have been an hour, in her mind, before someone came and found them. But time had gone so slowly. It could only have been minutes. Who knew?

Then next thing was a voice through that awful silence. It was a teacher. "Sunny. Sunny? Miss Banks, is that you? Are you alright, dear?" The woman had to come and pull Sunny's arms from her face. A crowd of teachers and students seem to be gathering.

First Sunny looked at her arms only to see that they were covered in blood. She finally felt the pain in her arms, a horrible pain like a splinter, only more like hundreds or thousands of them. There seemed to be something like that many splinters in her arms, too, only they were tiny metallic pieces rather than the usual wood of even fiberglass. Tiny metallic splinters.

Next she got a good look around. It seemed that similar stuff covered the ground and walls around her.

And Roxanne. A bloody mess on the ground. A terrible feeling crept over Sunny. Somehow she knew that she was responsible for that. And she didn't hate Roxanne. She never had, and even if she did, she couldn't now. She couldn't hate someone who was dead. And she couldn't hate someone with the terrible feeling that somehow she was to blame.

The scissors were gone from the dead girl's hand as well. And now that Sunny's brain was working just a bit better, she began to put two and two together. She had a feeling she knew exactly what those metal shaving were.

Her first action as what she at the time considered a class A **freak **would be to become very sick and vomit her guts out all over the ground and the teacher who had found her.


	3. Tips

"Tips, run, dammit, get out of here!" yelled Mavin, pushing a thin blue-haired boy forward. "We can't have you captured!"

Tiranapinus Cyrillus stumbled forward, fell, cringed at the sound of bootsteps, and tried to get back up and run. There was the door. In front of him. If only he could just make it to the door, just make it there, he would be fine. The door, the escape route out of Otherworld, his home, to someplace else. No one knew where yet. Test subjects didn't return. There wasn't time to find out. The others were always there, always ready to get at them while their backs were turned. They couldn't risk that. Tips, bruised an battered took one last look behind him at his home. Not that he'd ever had much love for it, but that was what it was. His home. Where every moment he lay in fear of what was around the next corner, for the shapeshifting others could be anywhere.

"Remeber," Mavin screamed, running forward, "_You're _the last!"

The Cyrillus clan. His family. A family of oddities among their people, great powerful leaders, mutants among their own kind. He was a discrace. The youngest child in the family, the rest of whom had all been murdered, and he jumped at every little sight. That was how one grew up, living in Otherworld. Constant fear. He took one step through the portal.

* * *

A girl named Eva was just moving into her house. The people in the neighborhood claimed it was haunted, and especially that the spirits lived in her room. Of course, that simply made her want the room more. But she never expected this.

It was ten'o'clovk on a late summer night, 2024. She had been getting a snack, and walked into her room to find something she'd never expected.

Her closet door opened, at first seemingly of its own accord, and a boy walked out. He was thin, almost gaunt, and looked to be in his teens. His eyes were green, bright and taking in everything, though not necessarily happy. His clothes were odd. A tight, black long-sleeved shirt with a navy blue cape around his shoulders, and navy gloves, and on his legs navy pants. These garments seemed to make him look thinner still. The outfit was covered in snags, rips, and snares, most of which revealed scars, cuts, and bruises of many sorts. She thought perhaps she may even have seen a rib poking out of the young man's chest. One of his eyes was bruised, and would soon be much more black and swollen, and there were more cuts near his lip and other eye. He stumbled in as if weak, with a limp like his leg may have been hurt. But the thing that struck Eva as most odd was his hair. It didn't seem to go with his odd getup at all. It seemed almost... modern. It was a tossed mess, here, there, and everywhere, and the color of it was a bright, crisp blue.

The boy looked at her, and his eyes showed shock and fright, before he collapsed on her floor.

She went over to him. Was this a ghost? But if so, what an odd ghost. Was he real? A figment of the imagination? Perhaps she was simply dreaming. After three minutes went by, she finally dared to touch him.

This boy was tangible. And he was alive.


	4. Rabbit

Rembra Corin's father was a mutant, and her mother's father was a mutant. No one else knew, and he never really used his powers. Her mother had powers, but she never called herself a mutant, and no one called her one. Which might have been odd. But she never spoke about them. So this had never changed anything.

Then Rembra turned five. And she started running. Not walking. Running. This wouldn't have matter if she had been a normal little girl. But Rembra Corin just happened to be a mutant. And she could run fast. Very fast. Her mother noted that Rembra's grandfather had been able to run fast, as well. She didn't know much else about him. No one talked about him. Ever. It was like there was some big secret.

After she outran and caught a young rabbit, asking to keep it for a pet, her parents laughed at this and began calling her "their little rabbit-catcher." This somehow was shortened along the way to simply "Rabbit," and the name stuck. Almost no one ever called her Rembra, and they barely even remembered how she got the name Rabbit. But that was her name.

When Rabbit was nine, her parents found she could jump. Not just a normal jump. Rabbit could leap over a tree around five times as tall as herself. And so, Rabbit was an even more suiting name.

Rabbit grew up, as little girls do, and became a teenager. She still acted like a kid, though.

Her eyes were large and sad or shy looking, almost like a puppy dog's, and dark. Her hair was black like her father's, and lay flat. She kept it short and straight around her face, framing a tiny nose and a tiny mouth. Her eyes seemed much too big for that small, childlike face. She was short, too, shorter than average, and most of it was her legs.

Then, 2023. The beginning of what would later be known as the Mutant Boom. On May 12th of that year, Rabbit was at a baseball game. Not that she liked baseball, oh, no, she didn't have any love for America's favorite pasttime, but one of her friends had won a contest, and they were having a sort of miniature party in the skybox she'd earned. The mascot was down there, entertaining the fans, while Rabbit sipped her milkshake. All the sudden, pachow, major brain freeze. She gritted her teeth and laughed, her friends giggling along. She always ended up getting those. The girl waited until it had passed.

And then Rabbit heard a loud CRACK.

It was what you'd expect the sound of the bat hitting the ball to be, but it sounded close. That was odd.

"HOME RUN!" shouted the radio announcer from the speaker in the ceiling.

Rabbit winced in pain. That had hurt her ears. She wondered who'd turned up the speakers and how they could possibly get that loud, when the crowd started screaming.

But it wasn't what she should have heard. She should have just heard a rumble like the sound of rain on a car window. Instead, it was a sound like a rushing waterfall. And that was only at first. Each second it got louder and louder bringing pain to her ears and sending her whole head throbbing. She screamed in agony. What was going on?

Her friends got up, rushing to her side, asking all sorts of questions.

"Rabbit?"

"Are you okay?"

"Are you hurt?"

"What's wrong?"

"Must be a migraine,"

"No migraine does that!"

"Shut up, Shut _up_!" She yelled, but even the sound of her own voice was unbearable. She fell over on the floor, holding her throbbing ears tightly with her hands, trying desperately to block out the noise.

Rabbit had always been able to live with her powers. It was easy. They were controllable, simple things. She'd never imagined a world where a mutant gift could cause her such harm.


	5. Danny

_This Chapter written by close friend and co-creator of the X-Corps, Gabriel_

Danny sighed, downing another shot of whatever it was he was drinking. Watching every woman that entered the bar, he shook his head. Not a single glance cast his way. He was a skinny man, with black glasses, a rugged goatee, and a nice body. But tonight just wasn't a good night for the man. Finally, he caught someone's eye, and offered his 'services'. In the bathroom, he was paid before the sex.

Afterwards, Danny blinked. "I'm not really your type, what?" The woman looked up, and shook her head. "I.. didn't say anything." Danny blinked, and fled, trying to block out the wishes of every woman who wanted a man.

He fled all the way home, where even there the wishes of women were cascading into his brain. It hurt, in short. Crying from the pain, he locked himself in the bathroom, slamming his fist onto the mirror. It cracked, and he felt hot blood rolling down his arm. Screaming his pain to the world, he looked into the mirror, and yelled again before repeatedly banging his fist onto the mirror. More blood spilled, and he continued crying.

Hours later, he awoke, lying in the bathtub in a pool of his own blood. Standing, he whiped the blood off of his face, but only smeared it more- his hands were bloody, too. Looking in the mirror, Danny gave a start- He didn't have blonde hair! What the hell was going on!

Stumbling back, he slipped in his blood, and managed to catch himself before falling. Stepping out of the bathtub, he loked in the mirror again. Yeah, that was the only thing he was sure about. His hair was blonde. Danny shook his head in amazement. "My hair was... brown.." He murmured, squinting.

He had dropped his glasses somewhere in his frenzy to rid his mind of women's wishes, which was still there, now that he thought about it. Just... not as bad. Danny located his glasses, and put them on.

Yes. Blonde hair. "What the hell!" He asked himself, running his bloody hands through his hair. He yelled in amazement as the blood turned his whole head a burgandy color. "Dude!" He screamed, watching as his hair turned from red, to blue, to green, and back to blonde.

"Oh fuck." He murmured. "I'm a mutant."


	6. Tom

_Written in collaboration with Gabriel

* * *

_

A car crash. Darkness. The hospital. He was taken away, the Doctor explaining to his parents that they needed to perform an 'experimental surgery'. They agreed; he was as good as dead anyways. 

---

"LET ME GO!" Tom screamed, thrashing with all of his will and power. None of it helped. The Doctors sedated him, and he was knocked out in a mstter of seconds.

When he woke up, he felt werid. "What?" He tried to say. Nothing came out. Only a strangled "Mew?" He jumped, and tried to scream. It didn't work, but an awful wailing of a cat filled the air.

A Doctor came into Tom's view, and he shrunk away, falling in his new form. "Don't worry, kittykitty, you're okay." The Doctor's voice was horrible, dripping with hate and malice.

Tom hissed, finding his voice. He was strapped to a table. As soon as he hissed, he was knocked out again. When he awoke, he was a boy again. A normal, regular boy! "Good evening, Tom." It was the Doctor. Tom yelled, and stumbled back; he was free. "Now, now. You'll find you've been changed, boy." The hate and loathing was back. "You can turn into a cat, Tom! Isn't that wonderful!"

Tom yelled, and cast about for an object or weapon. None was there. "What have you done to me!" He screamed, blood and tears coursing down his face. An image of Patches flashed before his eyes; a cat he had known that had gotten hit by a four-wheeler.

Tom screamed, and pain racked his body. His ribs cracked and reformed, his bones broke and reconfigured themselves. His jaw elongated, and then snapped back to his face, forming a muzzle. His ears grew, and he felt his spine elongate. His screams had turned to meows, and he bolted, still only half changed.

He made it out the door before the Doctor realized what was happening. By the time the guards arrived, Tom was gone.

* * *

_Taken from the diary of Sunshine Banks-Jones_

Tom's dad and my mom are married. I guess that makes us stepbrother and stepsister. Never really thought of it that way. Usually I just thought of aus as friends whose parents were married. I guess I'm just weird like that, though.

They'd been friends since... well, a long time. I'm not really sure how long. Since my dad left, and we moved here. I think they worked together. Yeah, that was how they met. They just hung out for the longest time. Then, when we were older, they started to date. It was odd at first, but me and Tom had always figured they'd get together eventually. You could just see it. You can usually see things like that.

When Tom was little he used to tell people he could talk to animals. They told him stuff, he told them stuff. No one really believed him. His dad, my mom, anybody. Well... I did. He proved it to me. If I was older it wouldn't have been much proof to see him walking around making cat noises to my pet, Patches. But then it was all the proof in the world. I knew it was the truth. I just knew. But he realized people wouldn't believed him, and defensively, he stopped telling people, kept it a secret. We were the only ones who knew, the only ones who remembered. Then.

He kept a lot of secrets, probably, some of which I guess I still don't know and maybe I never will. Usually it was little stuff. I suppose Tom was just a defensive sort of a guy, at least that's what I saw. But I knew his biggest secret. He'd never tell his dad he liked guys, or my mom, of course. They'd totally freak. But I guess we just trust each other like that. I'd tell him if I liked girls (Which I totally don't. Ew. Gross.). He knows that.

Anyway, I guess someone else must have known his secrets. Both of them, maybe even. Because one day Tom just disappeared. There was that perfectly innocent car crash; probably actually _was_ an accident. It was like, that morning he was in the hospital, almost ready for a discharge, and that afternoon he didn't come home like he was supposed to. Everyone thought Tom ran away. Somebody ended up coming out and telling his dad he was gay. That made them think it even more, and the police found a note in his room. For some reason I knew it wasn't Tom. If Tom ran away he'd tell me. Wouldn't he? I mean, we teased each other, sure, but we were buds! He'd never even talked about it. He liked it here. No problems.

But Tom didn't come back. A year passed. He still wasn't back. We all waited and waited. But still no Tom.

Last night I was in the backyard. Watching the stars. I guess I was remembering him. Something stupid. It was this stupid thing, this time when we were out four-wheeling. But my cat, Patches, she ended up getting in front of one of them. No more cat. Yeah, I was sad, but I think Tom was worse than I was. I mean, he'd had conversations with her, so to him it was more like running over a person. But it's those wierd little things about people you remember.

And then I thought I saw her. Patches, that is. _Must've just been a stray,_ I thought. There are a few around there. But it came into our yard, and walked up to me. And then it wasn't a cat anymore. This is the hard to explain part, because the cat was just gone, and there was Tom. But he was different. His ears were wierd... shaped like a cats'. And he had a tail, like a cat, too. I knew it was Tom, though. The rest still looked like him. And Tom's always had this weird patch of dark skin over his right eye. Like a cat. Yeah, it was definitely him.

Tom's never been a modest fellow, but he was totally _naked. _Later he explained that he loses his clothes turning into a cat. I guess that makes sense.

Somebody's really messed with him. And maybe someday we'll find out exactly who.


	7. Rebuilding

It's been a year. A year since it started, and it looks like it's going to keep going for a while. Mutants, they're still showing up everywhere. They're rebuilding the school. Xavier's, that is. His students, they all got together, decided to rebuild it. Bigger, better, for all the kids who would come there, so many more than there were back then. And then, to make it easier? They'll build another one. On the west coast. Plus some elementary schools, some middle schools. There'll be enough room for everyone to come.

Tom and Sunny, they're going to be the first new students in... well, quite a while. Besides me, of course. That's Rabbit, by the way. My name, that is. I met Tom and Sunny. The day they came to look at the school. They were still working on parts, but they liked it. They're both gonna come here. I'll probably hang around them for a while. What could the trouble be? Anyway, they're almost done with it now. The building. Pretty much just need carpet, some paint. Poof. Tada. Done.

Oh, yeah. I heard about this thing. I remember hearing stories... about the X-Men used to live here, ya know? That kind of stuff. So, you know. I guess there's gonna be a new thing going on. Government wants us - mutants - to be able to solve our own problems. Something caled the X-Corps, or somethin'. Anyway, some of the kids might volunteer... so it'll be just like old days. Govs'll pay for it and lets us go and stuff in return for us taking care of "mutant threats." Whatever. Anyway, I don't know much about it. So don't ask me. I'm not the right person. 


End file.
